Social Justice
Incidence of Cancer in Children
- 31 Jul 2019
- 2 min read
A recent study conducted by Lancet pointed out that 82% of cancer cases among children comes from poorer countries.
- According to the report, children with cancer in low-and middle-income countries are four times more likely to die of the disease than children in high-income countries.
- The study quantifies the burden of paediatric cancer in terms of number of healthy years lost for a country.
- Globally, in 2017, around 11.5 million disability adjusted life years (DALY)s are lost due to childhood cancer.
- The incidence or rate of cancer among India’s children is much lower than in the West.
- The rate of cancer among children in India is 80-90 children per 1,00,000 while the corresponding figure in the west is around 160.
- In India, many hospitals like All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS, Delhi), Tata Memorial Hospital (Mumbai) and Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGI-Chandigarh) have cancer survival rates almost equivalent to Western countries.
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Global Initiative for Childhood Cancer
- It was launched by World Health Organisation in 2018.
- It aims to reach at least a 60% survival rate for children with cancer by 2030, thereby saving an additional one million lives. This target represents a doubling of the global cure rate for children with cancer.
